Some On The Record Talk About WP7

Paul Thurrott is writing a book about Windows phone 7 secrets and because of that he had access to MS insiders Charlie Kindel and Greg Sullivan. He’s shared a short but very informative article about the conversations that he’s had so far (which were on the record). I thin it’s a nice read for those of you following WP7 closely, but here are two quotes that I think rally stand out. I appreciate both that MS understands that this is a 1st gen device but at the same time sees this is a fundamentally unique and grand new experience.

In other words, Microsoft is approaching Windows Phone much in the same way that Apple approaches those products that it creates. The company knows that the gen1 version will be lacking in certain areas because they want to do what they can do as well as possible. Over time, whatever things are lacking will be addressed. And this isn’t the first time Microsoft has done this: There are parallels that can be drawn between Windows Phone and the Zune PC software, which had a few gaping holes when it was first redone from scratch in version 2, but was otherwise excellent. The difference between Apple and Microsoft, of course, is transparency. Microsoft is being upfront about what’s missing from Windows Phone, and that’s something Apple would never do.

And now discussing the possibility of WP7 on a tablet:

"We worry less about that than we do about the exposed platform aspects, the tools, the APIs, and the services consistency," he said. "Think about it. We have XNA running on the phone, we have Silverlight on the phone. From the developer’s standpoint, they can target the phone just like they can the PC or Xbox 360 because it’s been abstracted for them. It’s one platform. And users can have experiences that span these platforms. That offering across a spectrum of screens is unique to Microsoft even today, and it’s getting better and better."

They’re a bit behind the market now, but overall I’m with them. I like where this is all headed…